Will Microsoft Release Its Own Windows 8 ARM Tablet?

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Microsoft isn’t necessarily known as a hardware company. Sure, it’s churned out plenty of nice mice, keyboards, and game controllers over the years, but success with actual devices has been mixed. The Xbox 360 has exceeded all expectations, while the Zune and Kin hardware have been monumental failures.

It’s a bit surprising, then, to read a report from DigiTimes indicating that Microsoft could very well be developing its own Windows 8 tablet — or slate, since CEO Steve Ballmer has made a point of talking about the two types of slabs as unique devices. DigiTimes’ sources claim that Microsoft will utilize a Texas Instruments processor, possibly something like the 1.8GHz dual-core OMAP4770 or an upcoming OMAP 5 based on ARM’s Cortex-A15 architecture. Other Taiwan-based OEMs are also rumored to be assisting in the manufacturing process.

Could Microsoft really be planning to release a tablet, even after it shocked geeks everywhere by killing off the Courier in 2010? Absolutely.

Tablet success so far has been just as much about the integration of services as it has about the hardware. Amazon’s Kindle, while singular of purpose, has been a phenomenal success — and a big part of that is the ease with which users can access Amazon’s services via the device itself. The same is true for the iPad, walking hand-in-hand-in-hand with iTunes and the App Store down the golden road to Profitland.

There are others moving into the market now, too, including manufacturers that have longstanding partnerships with Microsoft. Later this month HP will arrive on the scene with the TouchPad, dangling its sleek hardware and extensive list of back-end enterprise service offerings in front of IT administrators and tempting consumers with cloud audio and video integration — and it’s safe to assume that other, historically-Wintel OEMs will soon follow suit.

With plenty of cloud services of its own to offer, why shouldn’t Microsoft try a tablet of its own? Microsoft has an extensive audio and video delivery platform in Zune, Xbox Live and Games for Windows for gaming, and SkyDrive and Office for hosting user data. Better still, consumers are already familiar with these services — thanks to the success of the Xbox 360 and the “To The Cloud” ad campaign. This strong supporting cast would go a long way towards making a Microsoft tablet attractive to consumers, and who better to deliver the complete package than Microsoft itself?

A well-executed first-party tablet would also encourage other OEMs (who aren’t thrilled about the news right now) to up their game as well. Halfhearted attempts at Windows 7 tablets have done nothing to make the platform pairing look like a good fit, so if Microsoft wants Windows 8 to be a real game-changer it has every reason to hold its own device proudly aloft and shout “this is how it should be done.”

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